OPENING REMARKS

It is my pleasure to call for the opening of this Symposium on Market Oriented Green house Production. The symposium is held as an activity of the International Society for Horticultural Science under the patronageof H.E. Prof. Dr. Youssef Wally, Deputy Prime minister and minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation and to wish you all a pleasant stay in Alexandria.

The objective of the International Society for Horticulture Science is to promote the international cooperation to achieve the scientific and technological development of horticulture world wide.

It is always an open invitation for those who work in the field for horticulture to join the society and participate in its activities.

The ISHS is organized in sections, commissions and working groups according to the major branches and most important disciplines of horticultural science.

The Commission Protected Cultivation deals with all aspects of protected cultivation of vegetables, flowers, and fruits. The Working Group for Protected Cultivation in Mild-winter Climates has been created within the commission protected cultivation owing to the specificity of protected cultivation in the mild-winter conditions, using simple plastic structures adapted to the favorable climate. The technology used in the sophisticated heated glasshouse is unnecessarily suitable for such conditions. The philosophy of mild-winter is to take advantage of the climate in order to minimize the investments and the production-cost, but not to the extent that reduce the quality of production.

However, the greenhouse production system is changing very rapidly in the developed countries; the international market is imposing higher standards for quality; the trading agents and the governments are increasingly more concerned with consumers health and with the control of chemical residues; the citizens are very conscious of the environmental impact of agriculture and we know that some types of protected cultivation are not very environmentally friendly; and lastly, higher productivity is still required through more efficient use of production factors to stay competitive in the international market.

The mild-winter production system must be improved to keep in pace with the market evolution. That is why the Working Group Protected Cultivation in Mild-Winter Climates is encouraging the evolution of such systems. If no strong technological development is introduced in the existing greenhouse cropping system, it risks to become obsolete in the near future.

For some time, the Working Group has focuses on symposia with broad subjects. The idea was to put together different systems. But once the knowledge of the system is progressing, more specialized symposia were needed.

The Working Group have organized specialized symposia dealing with: specific greenhouse crops, soil or soilless culture, heating, and ventilation problems which were held in Egypt, Tunisia, Portugal and Turkey.

Solving the problems related to soil or climate in the green house may contribute to the maximization of production. It will also rationalize the use of agricultural inputs and achieve higher efficiency.

Our present meeting is concentrating on the different elements of production that affect quality of green house production, and hence, affect their acceptability in the markets.

The discussions of the technical papers presented in this meeting will certainly guide the future research to be more oriented to the needs of markets, and may also help to improve the quality of scientific research dealing with mild winter climates.

On behalf of the International Society for Horticultural Science, and the Working Group Protected Cultivation in Mild-Winter Climate, and personally, I welcome all of you to this symposium, and I wish you a pleasant stay and a fruitful professional meeting. This meeting coincides with the termination of the Desert Greenhouse Research Project which is a regional scientific program in the Mediterranean region dealing with production of greenhouses in collaboration with the United States of America. Out of 73 papers in this meeting, about 40 papers were conducted through this program. I am sure that these communications will enrich the meeting and help in formulating the future research plan in the mild-winter climates.

I would like to express my thanks to the Scientific Committee and the Organizing Committee for their efforts, and I wish you all active and enjoyable participation.

Thank you,,,

Prof. Dr. Ayman F. Abou-Hadid
Chairman
ISHS Working Group Protected Cultivation in Mild-Winter Climates